Kat, ambassador of the feminist government in exile & Cheerful Warthog—
Yeah, I’d always heard that the menstruation thing was related to the “curse of Eve,” as well. It’s especially funny, (so to speak) when discussed by Jews, because Jews don’t interpret Genesis that way at all. The expulsion from the garden isn’t viewed as a “curse” in Jewish theology, but rather an evolution or growing-up phase in collective human development.
That’s one of those canards, like Blood Libel, that always particularly frustrated me; it’s not just awful & dangerous, but actively contravenes basic Jewish tradition, i.e. kashrut forbids consuming ANY blood, and human sacrifice is taboo…yet blood libel claims both are practiced. (Along with somehow thinking that Jews would value unbaptized children, when baptism itself was a foreign practice to medieval Jews. It’s like the 80s panic, when pagans/wiccans were accused of stealing/desecrating communion wafers. But why go to the trouble over something not even a part of your faith?)

Still, I guess that mutually contradictory beliefs have never been a sticking point for bigots: Jews are dirty, subhuman, groupthinking pests…they control everything everywhere without detection! Feminists are shrill, mannish, hysterical harpies…they subtly make poor, easily duped men do their bidding by seducing them with sexy butt powerz! The Vice video with Moore supporters posted earlier in this thread really hammered that home to me: Moore’s 14yo accusers had “questionable reputations,” but Bill Clinton’s accusers all had “credibility.”

As for the horns rumor, well— that one was still going strong when I was a kid. I had a classmate whose grandfather assured them that it was true, and that was why Jewish folks wore hats & covered their heads.
Ok, I’m off to check out the new “The Mist!” It’s gotta be less horrifying than that vid of Moore’s supporters.

From 2008 through 2012, the employment office for Congress paid more than $166,000 in public money to settle eight claims against lawmakers alleging sexual harassment or discrimination, according to data it provided on Tuesday to Representative Gregg Harper, the Republican chairman of the House Administration Committee who is drafting a bill to overhaul how Congress handles sexual harassment.

The Office of Compliance previously said it has resolved three other cases since 2013.

I’d prefer criminally liable to financially liable, but thats just me.
Why is tax money being used for “shut up and go away” payments in the first place?

I’d like to remind everyone that there was a miniseries of the Shining in the 90’s. It was Stephen King approved and a more faithful adaptation than Kubrick’s version. It also sucked.

I’ve heard a theory that any Stephen King adaptation the himself hand a hand in was doomed to be crap. A quick look at his directorial debut and producer credits backs that one up. There are a number of good adaptations of his work that he hated, though he does at least have the good grace these days to admit that some of the shitty adaptations are, well, shit.

The fact that the GOP is acting so triumphant about passing this tax bill when said passing should presumably spell electoral doom for them in 2018 has me a bit concerned.

The more optimistic possibility is that the GOP knows full-well that their complete alienation of POC and Millennials is going to render them permanently unelectable within a few years, and is simply surrendering to their fate by throwing one last hurrah – scrounging around for every cent they can wring from their final term, like gangsters in a movie pulling off one last bank heist.

The more pessimistic possibility, on the other hand, is that the GOP knows full-well that the 2018 elections aren’t going to be free and fair; that a combination of voter suppression, gerrymandering and Russian interference is going to allow them to retain power in spite of the bill…

The fact that the GOP is acting so triumphant about passing this tax bill when said passing should presumably spell electoral doom for them in 2018 has me a bit concerned.

McConnell and Ryan finally get a chance to hurt people… of course they’re happy!! They’ve torpedoed Medicaid, seriously crippled Medicare and Social Security AND helped the mega-wealthy… what’s not to cheer??

I’ve only seen three of them: Kubrick’s The Shining, the TV adaptation of The Shining, and The Langoliers. I liked Kubrick’s adaptation. Didn’t see it in the theaters; too young, and wasn’t it rated R? My parents weren’t about to ‘harsh their mellow’ and have to deal with terrified children, who refused to go to sleep alone. I saw it on HBO several years later.

@WWTH: Yes I agree, the 90s Shining miniseries did suck.

The Langoliers: I think this is a weak book, or novella, to start with. I watched most of the TV miniseries, as well as read the book, after I watched the miniseries. It was watchable, but…

I don’t understand why this should be the case, but sometimes dialogue that sound plausible in a novel, doesn’t in a movie, play, or TV program. The dialogue in The Langoliers, IMO, just didn’t work in the miniseries, though it sounded believable in the novella.

I read that Stephen King once said something to the effect of: Some writing was filet mignon, and some was salami. His writing was salami. He tried to write good salami.

On the topic of the tax bill, put a pin in this moment. Save footage of your local Republican douchnozzle trumpeting this bill for the moment they turn around and start blaming Democrats for “deficits”. They did it in 2009, mark my words, they’ll do it again in 2021.

As for Stephen King… *cracks knuckles* yeah, I got an opinion or two….

I find Doug Walker to be obnoxious at the best of times, but I have to concur with him that King has a habit of let-down endings whenever his written works are translated to screen. Kubrick’s tyranny and mistreatment of Shelley Duvall aside, his end product really is that terrifying. That haunting heartbeat as Jack enters Room 237… chills, every time. King’s miniseries, on the other hand, is just dull. Yeah, it hews close to the book, but the written buildup lends more to Jack’s deteriorating state of mind, while on screen, it just comes across as fluff. Stephen Weber does what he can with what he’s given, but it’s not enough to make it a worthwhile sit (and I did sit through all 273 minutes of it).

There’s any number of ludicrous Stephen King adaptations that either build up to nothing (The Langoliers, IT), are just bad throughout (Dreamcatcher, Cell) or are just meh (Pet Sematery, Needful Things, Firestarter, Christine). There are the gems (Shawshank, Green Mile, The Shining), but I think in many instances those gems succeed in spite of King’s material. The Shining is clearly the most glaring example, but a lot of people forget that The Running Man was also a King story originally. The Mist remake was also great, modifying King’s ending as was mentioned upthread. This is not always the case (Apt Pupil really needed to stick to King’s story to work, to say nothing about the goofiness that was The Lawnmower Man), but it’s a trend I’ve observed in adaptations.

But frankly, there’s just so damned many adaptations that there’s plenty that are easy to overlook. Creepshow was pure gold (Ed Harris with hair, evil Leslie Nielsen, sinister Hal Holbrook and King himself as the doomed lunkhead Jordy Verrill). Misery had a damned memorable performance from Kathy Bates (although I never saw Dolores Claiborne). 1408 was a solid film. Maximum Overdrive was just silly enough to work for me. How Children of the Corn became a franchise that is still going baffles me to this day.

There’s still a bunch I should probably see at some point like the original Carrie or Cujo, but I’ve seen the majority of the gems.

I guess to sum up… Dreamcatcher owes me an apology for being a shit film (literally). Seriously, fuck that movie.

Projecting the “banned words” onto a Trump building: I love projection-as-protest. I mean, what can the target do? It’s non-violent, it’s not vandalism, it’s not trespass…

I’ve seen Trump’s opinion about pets before, and it’s so telling about his character. Of course he doesn’t understand the appeal of caring for an animal who depends on you utterly, and who doesn’t give a damn about how successful you are, and of course he doesn’t realise that his comments don’t reflect well on him. I wonder whether he’s really ever loved anyone or anything other than money or power?

Francis, who met with Law briefly the day after he was elected pope when he went to pray at St. Mary Major, made no comment about Law’s passing during his weekly general audience Wednesday.

In a letter of condolences later, he made no mention of Law’s tenure in Boston and referred only to his position as the retired archpriest of St. Mary Major.

“I raise prayers for the repose of his soul, that the Lord, God who is rich in mercy, may welcome him in His eternal peace, and I send my apostolic blessing to those who share in mourning the passing of the cardinal,” Francis wrote.

Francis is due to preside over the funeral rites at a Mass celebrated Thursday at 3:30 p.m. (1430GMT) in St. Peter’s Basilica, an honor accorded to all Rome-based cardinals. The dean of the College of Cardinals, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, will be the lead celebrant.

SNAP, the main U.S. advocacy group for survivors of abuse, urged Francis to keep survivors in mind during the funeral, saying Law didn’t deserve the pomp and circumstance he enjoyed in life and shouldn’t have it in death.

“This celebratory focus on abuse enablers like Law must end,” said SNAP’s Joelle Casteix. “It is time for the Vatican to refocus on change: protecting children and those who have been hurt.”

I read your post. I think my mother might be a part-time resident of Florida. I don’t know if that counts. Sadly, she’s been drinking the Fox News Kool-Aid for years, and I doubt she would support this petition. *Sigh*

But Len Cariou is still with us, right? *checks Wiki* Whew… we’ll keep movie Cardinal Law, real Cardinal Law can fail upward right into the noodle-y appendages of the Flying Spaghetti Monster where he can’t hurt people anymore.

@opposablethumbs Curse you for making me want to finish the rest of the Imperial March. LOL! (I’m sure I could work in ‘madelines’ somewhere.) Well, I would if I weren’t still feeling like I got run over by an Imperial Walker (had the flu a couple of weeks ago…stiiiiiill tiiiiiired…. :P)

I believe he’s constantly looking for that next thing, the thing that’s going to make him feel good about himself. Unfortunately, his obsession with the NEXT “next thing” immediately derails any satisfaction he could enjoy from having “got” the LAST “next thing”.

I feel sorry for Trump only until I remember how many people he’s hurt. I think that’s a time measured in picoseconds.

Gah! Never even occurred to me that saying “Sad” could be taken as feeling sorry for him!
I meant sad as in he’s a pathetic little man. And little there is in the moral sense – the size of his attributes are of no interest to me. 😛

Oh, no worries. I knew what you meant, so no apology needed. If anything, I was thinking about the people who now say that POTUS needs support always (now that President Obama has left the Oval Office).

The fact that the GOP is acting so triumphant about passing this tax bill when said passing should presumably spell electoral doom for them in 2018 has me a bit concerned.

Yes, me too, but I do like the explanation I head on (I think) Rachael Maddow. Their traditional base has shrunk to white evangelicals of the sort that give wait staff a tract instead of a tip. OK, I’m paraphrasing that bit, but their small dollar campaign donations are negligible. All the useful money comes from about 20 families of billionaires. They have to choose between alienating the public, and having no money for reelection. Presumably they think the public are stupid, have short memories, and are more swayed by campaigns than facts.

They’re probably right about a lot of people (partly because stress tends to do that to you) but I think they’re overestimating what they can get away with, in spite of vote suppression and gerrymandering.

I think they’re overestimating what they can get away with, in spite of vote suppression and gerrymandering.

for the bigot base, that’s simply NOT POSSIBLE. The trumpanzees are saying OUT LOUD that they don’t care how little the Repugnican’t agenda does for them, indeed they’re saying they don’t even care if it actively HURTS THEM, as long as the Repugnican’t agenda is hurting the people the bigots hate.

The dumpster fire bunch will get the 33-million open-faced bigots’ vote every time. They likely can’t win the white house (formerly known as the “White House”) without the 30-million other trump voters who formed the Synchronized Denial Demonstration Team, but the ‘pugs would rather have the money from the mega-wealthy and just buy the election.

My concern is the congressional races in the red states. If they can gerrymander those races, they can always have a situation where they only need flip a few congresscritters’ votes. And, as we are well aware, there is NEVER a shortage of politicians willing to sell out those whom they were hired to serve, in order to keep their seat.

A part of me is worried that Trump is going to try to cancel the elections somehow.

yeah, call me paranoid, but I consider that to be a foregone conclusion. The dumpster is NOT going to leave office voluntarily, PARTICULARLY if he feels he’s going to be defeated in an election.

His delusions go beyond the norm. When he told people he had “a million, maybe a million and a half” people at his inauguration, I think he actually believes he saw them. His reality is completely spur-of-the-moment, and completely malleable.

I think David should create a thread about/for discussing The Last Jedi sometime close to New Years Day, if he wants to. By then enough Mammothers should have seen the film to get a good discussion going about it, while letting those who haven’t seen it by then avoid spoilers.

Also, there should be a virtual cornucopia of outraged Alt Right reactions by then to the assorted SJW themes in TLJ to make a good blogpost over. At least in my opinion; your mileage may vary on that point.

Though am I the only one here that kinda hopes that Disney eventually does to the Expanded Universe what Marvel Studios did to its own characters to create the Marvel Cinematic Universe? That is, take the essence of characters like (for example) Mara Jade and rework them to fit in with the Disney version of the Star Wars Universe?

While admittedly the writing wasn’t the best in much of the EU, there were still a bunch of cool concepts and characters in there that should be given new life again. Including stuff from the old Marvel and Dark Horse SW series. Some of that was seriously cool, in my opinion.

A part of me is worried that Trump is going to try to cancel the elections somehow. Half the gop would support him if he did.

I know it seems irrational, but I can’t rule anything out where Trump is involved.

I remember in 2008 a lot of progressives were afraid that GWB would find a way to declare martial law and cancel the elections but I dismissed that as paranoid rubbish.

This time, I think it’s a valid fear.

I also think it’s equally possible that if polling indicates he’ll lose his reelection campaign badly, he’ll decide not to run again in order to save face. I don’t think he likes being president all that much. Too much scrutiny and too many expectations.

@Fishy Goat, try changing it from minor to major key too – it sounds ridiculous as a non-evil/pre-evil Vader march (very skipping-through-the-bluebells-with-cartoon-bluebirds-and-fluffy-bunnies theme tune).

(sorry for continuing to meander along the derail/sideline, everybody. I’m kind of hiding (aka cowering) behind the sofa re yer actual (e.g. Trump and/or brexit-related) news just at the moment :-/ Things here tend to be a bit of a minefield at this time of year… )

Nequam— Yep, I’ve def heard a version of blood libel was originally used against Christians by the pre-christian Roman empire. How I learned it back in uni* was thusly: early Christians found that an easy way to increase their numbers was to rescue Roman infants who had been left outside the city walls to die of exposure. (per the Roman tradition of abandoning newborns which seemed weak/sickly; potentially illegitimate; a financial burden; suspected of disability, etc.)

The Roman political & religious TPTB simply couldn’t imagine what these odd, new, troublesome not-Jews could possibly be doing with these (in the minds of TPTB) “worthless” infants they were scooping up. Clearly they couldn’t be intending to *gasp* raise them as their own; they’d already been judged worthless, inferior, a drain on resources!

Faced with questions, Roman TPTB acted in character with their historical peers. (Projection powerz: ON!)
After all, what other conclusion could they have come to, really? (/s) When dealing with a mysterious new cult, whose rituals seem incomprehensible, but maybe have to do with “blood,” “virgins,” “ultimate sacrifice,” and…collecting abandoned babies?
OMFG…THEY MUST BE SACRIFICING & EATING THE BABIES!!! WHAT ELSE COULD IT BE?!!? NO MYSTERY CULT CAN EVER HAZ SYMBOLISM BEFORE!!

The dehumanizing trope of “baby-eating savage!!11” has long been a tactic used by “civilized” societies as a means of rendering The Other into “barbarians.” Such imagery reliably evokes horror & disgust in the “civilized”, “Western” mind…even, it seems, in the leaders of Rome, despite their perception of infanticide as socially moral & healthy.
(I think the most recent spate of attacks on PP are going for exactly this angle; they weren’t gaining traction from either violent terror directed at women & providers, nor from trying to convince WoC that there was a “genocidal” campaign against them. So they went right for “OMG PP IS *LITERALLY* CANNIBALIZING BABBYS U MIGHT DRINK FETUS PEPSI!!!”)

Alan— Huh! I’d always heard that it came from people seeing Michelangelo’s sculpture of Moses at San Pietro in Vincoli, and confusing what were supposed to be “rays of light” with “horns.” But now that I’m looking it up, it appears that a translation error from Hebrew confused “radiant” with “horns,” and that maybe Michelangelo just ran with that? Layers and layers…of horny Mosii. Who knew?

awful “atheists and skeptics are just Christians who disagree with God” storyline.

I really hate when movies do that, it turns me right off of the film.

@ WWTH
I’ll admit, I was one of those progressives who were worried. (At least I have the excuse of still being a stupid teenage at the time)

I really hope Trump takes the resignation option instead. I’d be willing to let him take a golden parachute if it meant he was no longer in a position to screw over America. (I’d prefer jettisoning him into the sun, but you have to take what you can get)

I can live with Trump declaring that he’s finished everything that a president should do, and now he’s going to step down and enjoy his post-presidential period in a country with no extradition treaty. It’s not all that different from how he handled the Obama birth certificate “investigation.”

WWTH & Weird Eddie—
Yep, count me in as someone who had that fear in 2008. And who feels it once again, except now it’s more like a near-overwhelming terror at times, because (IMHO at least) the supporters of W were nuthin’ like what I’m seeing with the waves upon waves of devout, die-hard, bloodthirsty (literally!) minions of Big Orange T.

These folks don’t just want a sanitized war against brown people in some far-off, unpronounceable-to-them land, for vague reasons associated with “Patriotism MURICUUUH!”
They want a real, up-close, bloody, violent war, fought on American soil, waged against OTHER AMERICANS WHO MAKE THEM ANGRY OR UNCOMFORTABLE!

They aren’t even bothering to cloak it in the language of “values” and “morals” at this point. Gone are all the Gothardite and Dobsonian references to “character” and “family.”
Naked, shameless, vicious, violent rage, hatred, greed, xenophobia, intimidation & bigotry of all stripes. And they’re PROUD to show it off; they’re proud to show how this Randian misanthropy makes them “winners!”

“atheists and skeptics are just Christians who disagree with God” storyline.

I also hate how in the movies, characters are usually only atheists if they’re troubled and grieving and something bad happened to make them lose their faith. Prime examples of this would be Signs and The Knowing.

I’m an atheist because none of the religions out there ring true to me and I see no particular reason to believe in any deities without some pretty compelling evidence. I think that’s probably true of most non-theists. It’s irritating and offensive that popular culture gives the impression that one is only atheist if they’re defective in some way.

I actually had to stop near the beginning of Dean Koontz’s retelling of Frankenstein because there was a serial killer who killed people because not believing in God was so traumatizing for him that he snapped. What the fucking fuck?

Indeed. There’s a more general discernible trend with Koontz from being more sci-fi-ish early on, to some sort of almost-fundie-level Xtian pulpit-pounding in the past ten years or so. Makes me wonder if someone slipped him some sort of Kool-Ade sometime around the mid-2000s.

Koontz is also a gun lovin’ libertarian. Maybe he always was, but it didn’t used to show up in his books quite as much.

He also does that thing where he’s always talking about how the world these days is so violent and cruel and shallow. Not like the perfect, perfect olden days.

Typical privileged straight white dude crap where he either doesn’t know or doesn’t care that the 1950s weren’t so wonderful for a lot of people.

Even when his plots were better, there was a lot of issues in his books. I was already rolling my eyes at his poorly written female characters when I was a 13 year old who had no clue what good writing was. The female love interest/protagonist was always, always a naturally super slim woman with a sad past who is naturally beautiful and has no idea. Can’t have women be all uppity and confident now can we?

Yet I keep reading his books because my parents tend to obtain them and pass them down to me. I’ll read just about any thriller if I can get it for free.

Manecki Neckbeard,
They’re the same people. They’ve been carefully groomed.
This plan has been in place since Carter was in office. They’re tools and the evangelical right has been sharpening them for a while.
We’re in for a wild ride.

You know that thing where people go “but due process!” when sexual harassers and abusers are getting the scrutiny for a change? Fuck that thing.

Politeness feels like an irritating courtesy used on enablers when it comes to being political. They’re shoving a broken social structure at people who’ve been denied the same damn structure, and doing it in public, the wrong context. Reciprocity says the social contract is null and void. The burden of proof on them.

Anyone who enjoys an argument has lots of targets. This is so vulnerable to criticism and mockery. Historical contingency is the only thing holding it together.

We Hunted the Mammoth tracks and mocks the white male rage underlying the rise of Trump and Trumpism. This blog is NOT a safe space; given the subject matter -- misogyny and hate -- there's really no way it could be.